This new digital era is marked by an important new factor: user experience. Users have the ultimate say in steering the development of the industry so it is vitally important that they are equipped with the means with which to quickly and easily access mobile networks. This in turn drives current and future industry development, which will result in a flourishing information age.

In today’s world, millions of services and applications are close at hand, enabling a constant, 24-hour online digital life. While the underlying network infrastructure is at the heart of this ubiquitous connectivity, user experience is limited to a few points of interface. Since user experience and the demand for continuous service drives technological development, it is therefore of utmost importance to provide users with optimal experiences.

The following factors best illustrate what comprises an optimal user experience.

1. Speed that counts: Zero wait time redefines network speed

In telecommunications, increases in speed are often measured exponentially. Due to rapidly advancing technologies that have taken us from dial-up to fiber to the home (FTTH), it has taken a mere 20 years to increase bandwidth by 1,000 times. Despite this extraordinary pace of development, people are still clamoring for additional bandwidth.

Despite the current fixation on bandwidth, in the future, network speed will no longer be measured by the bandwidth a service needs, but determined instead by the wait time experienced by users waiting for networks to respond. Zero wait time for users is the new paradigm that will shape Internet development.

2. Quality that counts: Ensuring the availability of video and other media presentation forms powered by augmented reality technologies

The development of the Internet has witnessed the transformation of web content from mere text, images and sounds into high-definition videos and other next-generation forms of media presentation, such as 3D technologies, ultra high-definition technologies, and augmented reality technologies. These vivid media presentation forms will become more widely available and will increasingly be used across various applications such as e-commerce, social networking, and broadcast media.

3. Freedom that counts: Access the ubiquitous Internet easily and instantaneously

It took twenty years to bring the number of fixed Internet users to two billion, but only five years to bring the number of mobile Internet users to one billion, two times faster than the fixed Internet. Today people are enabled to be online anywhere and anytime because the mobile Internet sets users free from fixed lines as well as the popularization of the smart phones.

Similarly, à la carte services will continue to be provided on-demand, television programming in particular, since people will have the ability to watch programs at any time much more freely than they do today. Key to this provision of on-demand services is a freely available mobile Internet, which will enable users to easily access services and applications around the clock and in any location.

4. Simplicity that counts: Optimal ergonomic function

The history of man-machine interaction, during which the input method has transformed from keyboard and mouse to touchpad to motion sensing input, demonstrates a return from complicated input devices to intuitive and natural ones that tap into natural human function and form. In the future, even more natural ergonomics will further the user experience by leveraging people’s natural abilities like speaking, making gestures, and conveying emotions.

5. Sharing that counts: Community-like experiences elevate user experience

Google introduced mathematical logic to its search services, providing improved access to massive amounts of information. Google does this merely at the tool layer, while Facebook transcends the tool layer and deals with the social nature of humans. By emphasizing the social aspects of the Internet, Facebook addresses users’ emotional needs to some extent as well as satisfying their desire for sharing. The Facebook phenomenon indicates that a community-like experience will be a basic feature for both consumer-oriented services and enterprise-targeted applications.

The pursuit of a better user experience is a major driver in the further development of the telecom industry. A better user experience equates to higher speed, better quality, more freedom, greater simplicity, and easier sharing—in some ways, these factors reflect our fundamental human nature.

Although the concept of an information society has been bandied about for years, actual information-based development has just begun. The ongoing pursuit of better user experiences will continuously drive the transformation of information services. The development of telecom networks and technologies will also enter a new development phase. The combination of optimizing user experiences and network technologies will undoubtedly drive information services into stronger synergies and promote new applications and technologies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jeff Liu Jiangfeng is currently the Southern Pacific Region and Vice Present of Asia Pacific Region of Huawei. In this role, Mr. Jiangfeng Liu is responsible for telecommunication including marketing strategy, planning and operations as well as product promotion and sales of wireless, wire line and data communication networks in the Southern Pacific Region. Jiangfeng has persistently dedicated to implementing the customer-centric culture to achieve a sound and prosperous business development in the Asia Pacific Region, one of the fastest growing regions in the global scale.

Jiangfeng brings more than 15 years solid technical and management experience and expertise to the role and has held senior product and business development positions within Huawei since 2000. Originally joined the company in 1996, Mr. Jiangfeng Liu has contributed and witnessed the makeover of Huawei from a small local enterprise to a global giant.

User Experience as a Disruptive Force in Today’s Telecom Industry: Huawei originally appeared on GreyReview.com on January 6, 2012.

Those expecting the service to be free should not hold their collective breaths, though… the outlet operators are given the choice to provide Wi-Fi to their customers for free or for a reasonable fee.

In an interview with the NST, Kuala Lumpur mayor Tan Sri Ahmad Fuad Ismail acknowledged that Wi-Fi is in demand and that food outlet operators who offer it will be giving their customers value-added services.

The mayor also mentioned that the council is also currently studying the feasibility of  installing Wi-Fi facilities at public food courts.

Image credit

KL Eateries to be Wi-Fi Ready originally appeared on GreyReview.com on January 4, 2012.

According to the letter, both Acts threaten to “give the US Government the power to censor the web using techniques similar to those used by China, Malaysia and Iran.”

The signatories of the Open Letter include Sergey Brin (co-founder of Google), Jack Dorsey / Evan Williams / Biz Stone (co-founders of Twitter), Elon Musk (co-founder of PayPal), Chad Hurley (co-founder of YouTube), Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIn), Jerry Yang (co-founder of Yahoo!), and Pierre Omidyar (founder of e-Bay).

Sergey Brin posted on his Google+ page on why he supports the Open Letter:

In just two decades, the world wide web has transformed and democratized access to information all around the world. I am proud of the role Google has played alongside many others such as Yahoo, Wikipedia, and Twitter. Whether you are a student in an internet cafe in the developing world or a head of state of a wealthy nation, the knowledge of the world is at your fingertips.

Of course, offering these services has come with its challenges. Multiple countries have sought to suppress the flow of information to serve their own political goals. At various times notable Google websites have been blocked in China, Iran, Libya (prior to their revolution), Tunisia (also prior to revolution), and others. For our own websites and for the internet as a whole we have worked tirelessly to combat internet censorship around the world alongside governments and NGO promoting free speech.

Thus, imagine my astonishment when the newest threat to free speech has come from none other but the United States. Two bills currently making their way through congress — SOPA and PIPA — give the US government and copyright holders extraordinary powers including the ability to hijack DNS and censor search results (and this is even without so much as a proper court trial). While I support their goal of reducing copyright infringement (which I don’t believe these acts would accomplish), I am shocked that our lawmakers would contemplate such measures that would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world.

It seems Sergey Brin considers Malaysia, China, and Iran as the most oppressive nations in the world!

In June 2011, Malaysian government directed Malaysian ISPs to block 10 file sharing sites. This prompted hacker group Anonymous to hack attacks on Malaysian websites on June 15 2011.

Open Letter to Washington – SOPA and PIPA

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Sergey Brin, Jack Dorsey, Chad Hurley, Jimmy Wales, et al. to U.S. Government: DO NOT Emulate These Oppressive Nations – Malaysia, China, Iran originally appeared on GreyReview.com on December 15, 2011.

For example, Google discovered a better way to search information and its PageRank idea is codified in algorithms (Google’s secret sauce and hard to copy). For PageRank, it’s intrinsic characteristics are functionally superb; it’s commercialization strategy (AdWords, AdSense) is creative. The combination is creating a formidable barrier of entry for Google. Today, the company captured over 60% of web searches worldwide and about 45% of US Internet advertising revenues.

Of course, not many ideas are like PageRank. Many product ideas are relatively easier to copy. Within a market segment, there are multiple variations. For example, in the microblogging marketspace, there are Twitter, Plurk, Rejaw, Identi.ca, Brightkite and Jaiku. Each with different features and interface structure but fundamentally similar to the others.

If a product idea is relatively easy to emulate, then how to create competitive advantage? How to build (temporary) barriers of entry? The followings are some tactics to create and sustain competitiveness:

Strike First Probably, the most well-known strategy among web enterprises. Speed is king. Here, it’s not about bringing the best and unique idea to the marketplace but it’s about execution and implementation. If there are 10 people working on the same idea like yours and you bring to the market first, you are likely to win the ‘game’. Being first in the market enables a company to lock-in users and create network effects. eBay still managed to lead the market segment it pioneered. However, as we have witnessed in several cases, first mover is not an advantage all the time. Examples: (a) Although once commanding 90% of the market with its Navigator browser, Netscape lost the browser war to Microsoft. (b) MySpace and Friendster losing ground to late-comer Facebook in the social networking market. (c) One of the earliest search engine, Excite, lost its shine and was overtaken by Altavista, Hotbot, Google, etc.

Timing SixDegrees.com is probably the first social networking site on the Internet. It lasted from 1997 to 2001. Unfortunately, in 1997, social networking is not in vogue. Its demise is partly due to timing. If it were launched a few years later, it may join some of the thriving social networks around today such as Friendster, Bebo and MySpace. So, if your idea failed to take-off, it doesn’t mean the idea sucks. Maybe, it’s simply way ahead of its time. This is probably an anti-thesis of first-mover. Sometimes, the market forces and dynamics are just not ready for the products and ideas introduced by the first-movers. The lesson here is to have speed in the right direction. The right direction is dependent on entrepreneurial creativity and ingenuity.

Big Bang Once in a while, a company introduced big bang, disruptive technologies in the marketplace. The company changes the rules of the games, introduces a new order and alters the competitive landscape. Over the past years, we have witnessed a few disruptive forces. Facebook opened its Platform to third-party developers in 2007 and changed the way social network operates. Since then, its competitors adopted similar strategy. Google Gmail entered the web-based email with then unheard of 1Gb free storage. Prior to the launch of Gmail, leading services like Microsoft Hotmail and Yahoo! offered 2Mb and 4Mb, respectively. Another example is iPhone, which introduced discontinuity in mobile phone market. Since its introduction, leading players like Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Research In Motion (BlackBerry) and Palm are playing catch-up. Big bang tactic is highly suitable for a new player to compete with established players and define new competitive rules in the marketplace. It’s about creating a ‘blue ocean’ marketspace, proclaimed W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne.

Scale and Scope Amazon.com started as an online bookstore and became a virtual mega-store selling toys, clothes, grocery, tools etc. Then, it started to rent its e-commerce infrastructure to merchants and also offers its cloud computing and storage services to thousands of websites (eg. Twitter, SmugMug, and AdaptiveBlue). Amazon.com is constantly extending and expanding its offerings by leveraging on its core assets and knowledge-base to tap market opportunities. The strategy is to organically grow into a distinct organizational form that is hard to emulate. Similar to traditional industries, economies of scale and scope are the barriers of entry.

Conclusion

Enterprises are created to design, develop and deliver value objects to the market and always strive to gain leadership position in the marketplace. Building barrier(s) of entry is imperative for businesses to sustain profit generation and ultimately, enhance organizational survival in the competitive marketplace. First-mover advantage, right timing, unique value proposition and distinct organizational form can be used to make life a lot harder for your competitors.

Sources of Images: Excite, Sixdegreesre, Hotmail, Amazon.com

How to Create Barriers of Entry in the Age of Innovation originally appeared on GreyReview.com on August 23, 2008.